Chapter 14§
Protected by Lord Ganesha
In 1986 I had a powerful vision of Lord Ganesha while I was here in Mauritius looking for property for Saiva Siddhanta Church. Lord Ganesha was walking from His temple attended by two priests. He was about to take a bath in the beautiful Indian Ocean in the country of Mauritius where the river meets the sea. I was standing in the water with several sharks swimming around me. Lord Ganesha looked at me and said, “Just rub some oil on their noses and they will not harm you.”§
The vision led me directly to this special land by the Rempart River and its lagoon. The Spiritual Park is a fulfillment of that vision. I see it combining environmental and architectural beauty that will give spiritual peace and mystical knowledge to visitors for many generations in the future. It is destined to become a pilgrimage site of great renown in the Indian Ocean area. Hindus from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Africa and India will come here.§
Today thousands of Hindus attend the monthly homa at the Spiritual Park, burning their prayers in its magical fires. Outside the wooden, Kerala-style thatched pavilion, they crowd together in the shade of mango and sacred konrai trees to worship the nine-foot-tall, black granite murti of Lord Ganesha with five faces and ten arms.§
After his vision of Ganesha and the shark, Gurudeva’s Spiritual Park was founded in Mauritius and flourishes to this day. He developed religion courses for the children, taught parents to raise kids without pain, blame or shame, imported stone murtis of the Deities from India and visited often to participate in festivals, parading through the grounds at his ashram, situated where the river meets the sea and filled with mango trees.§